


Just Z

by indefensibleselfindulgence



Category: Drag-On Dragoon | Drakengard
Genre: (both on a technicality), Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Insomnia, Past Abuse, Sharing a Bed, Wound Worship, minor gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 16:35:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18742867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indefensibleselfindulgence/pseuds/indefensibleselfindulgence
Summary: He didn't think he'd have nightmares.





	Just Z

**Author's Note:**

> guess who my favorite character is go on 
> 
> vaguely branch b

He didn't think he'd have nightmares.   
  
It was dumb to assume he wouldn't, but after Z picks up the old man and the idiot and the cold, snowy winds dig all the way under his skin, he gets nightmares, always of Her, always of past embarrassments and mistakes and threats.   
  
So he doesn't sleep, for a while.   
  
Well, four days.   
  
He makes it four days until some no-name grunt grazes him in the shoulder and he just drops like a sack of bricks. A complete shock to the system that he can't get up from. Octa's chakram splatters brain matter over the ground which would be way more fun if he could move and appreciate it. It takes Z a while to get rid of them, even getting up on Mikhail for her trouble. For a while he thinks that she's left him, taken the other three and fucked off because he's slowing them down, slowing her down. And he gets it. He was being stupid, he annoyed her, he gets it. He's going to die up here, cold and alone, and all he can do is convince himself that it's better to die freezing than burning.   
  
Until Z steps into his vision and stares down at him like he's an idiot.   
  
And he is.  
  
“Hey Z.”   
  
She rolls her eyes, leans down and pulls him over her shoulder like he weighs nothing and carries him like that all the way back to camp, the others trailing behind them, Decadus trying to look like he's not gagging for it.   
  
She sets him down gently, more gently then he thinks she's ever been with him and commands Mikhail starts the fire close. She tugs his shirt open and then half off so that she can see his shoulder, the way the blood crusts around the wound. It's not even that deep, and it still put him out.   
  
“What the fuck were you thinking?”   
  
“You know.” He doesn't, she doesn't, no one does. It's just something to say. Her eyes snap back over his, and he has to deal with her scrutiny now, and god did he not think this through.   
  
“If you want to get hurt that badly you could just ask.” Decadus groans nearby and Dito frowns. Can't keep it off of his face. “I'm equal opportunity.” She says lower, for him now, only for him. “If you want to get caught and torn up just tell me.”   
  
“Pretty pedestrian, Z.” His eyes shoot to the side, staring at the crackling dragon fire. “You know I like giving more than receiving.” She presses a hand down on the flesh around the wound, and the pain sends fire down his spine, all the way down to his toes. “How bad is it?”   
  
“'Fraid we'll have to amputate.” He thinks about it- probably for too long and too happily before she slaps his injured shoulder and he shoots up in pain, almost slamming his head against hers. “You'll live.”   
  
“Shame.” That earns him a smile and another slowly growing bruise.   
  
She makes Decadus dress the wound as punishment, so he figures he gets off pretty easily, considered. While she goes off to hunt for something to eat with Cent, Dito lets his mind wander while Decadus rolls him on his side and dutifully does his job.   
  
He imagines the cut on the others, on Zero specifically, imagines the gash being worse and digging his fingers in until he can run them along the muscle and the bone, feeling the connections, the tendons, the grooves and the ridges. She'd take it like it's nothing because she barely feels anything at all anyway. Probably. Maybe he'd shove his whole fist in there, tugging at her clavicle until it came loose and he could lick it clean, iron smeared over his lips, smiling, grinning at her.   
  
“Done.”   
  
“Then fuck off.” He bites out because wow- exceptionally dog shit timing.   
  
Even if he's a freak, Decadus is good at patchwork. Dito can roll onto his back easily, letting the fire warm his side and try to get the visual out of his mind before Z came back and ripped him a new one.   
  
Dinner's uneventful, just some casual bullshit until Cent decides to teach them all about the melting point of snow and Octa has to physically restrain Zero from throwing him all the way down the mountain.   
  
He's never met Two, personally, but he really doesn't envy whoever was stuck serving under her and her disciple.   
  
She sits by his side all night, which is weird because usually, she'd pretend to not baby Mikhail and also because she doesn't like sitting by the fire. But every now and again she bumps into him, what could be an innocent little shoulder check that makes his arm burn if they were anyone else.   
  
“Cute.” He hisses under his breath when she does it again, for the fourth time maybe.   
  
She doesn't say anything back, just smirks and calls Cent a moron again, just for good measure, in case he forgot the last twenty times.   
  
They bed down for the night, Zero on the other side of him, back to her and front to the fire.   
  
“You going to actually sleep today?”   
  
Dito really thought she hadn't noticed.   
  
“Someone has to take watch.”   
  
Which is bullshit, because no one has ever taken watch, even when it was just him and her and Mikhail, because who the fuck is stupid enough to even try and attack them? Who has balls big enough to try for the demon intoner and her dragon?    
  
“You care?” She asks, and he's ready to dig his heels and tell her some long-winded story about security and safety until he realizes she has a hand hovering over his hip and that's not what she's asking about.   
  
Does he care?   
  
She's always let him start anything between them, never pushed. He had assumed the worst, but she and Her were really different in just every conceivable way.  
  
“Nah.” He says, and his voice definitely doesn't crack. But her hand just rests on his hip, breath on the back of his neck, and that's it. “You didn't have to ask for a cuddle Z.”   
  
“Are you going to sleep?” She asks again, and Dito swallows.   
  
Shrugs.   
  
Mistake.   
  
Instant regret.

Pain.  
  
“Don't know yet.” He'd like to. He'd like to rest and dream of beautiful violence and gorgeous rot and everything he could do to faceless thousands if he just had the time and the lack of company. But- and loathe as he is to admit it, that's not what he's going to dream about. If he's going to dream at all.   
  
“Even if I'm here?” Her voice is low, so different from- he has to stop comparing them- but then-   
  
“I mean.” He says. “We can do something else.” She presses up closer to him, chest to back now and she's cold. Like- weirdly cold. But he's pretty sure she always has been. It's so different. “Giving or receiving, I don't really care.”   
  
“Of course you don't.” But she doesn't make a move to. She rests her forehead against his hair, breathing out right on his nape and it makes him shiver. “Go to bed Dito.”   
  
“In bed already,” He says, and she flicks him with her fingers. “Lighten up Z.”   
  
“If you're going to drop over a tiny stab wound we're going to have a problem.”  Probably, considering how much they get stabbed on the regular. He can see how it would be inconvenient.   
  
“I just had one bad day.”   
  
“Hm.” The hand on his hip moves until it rests over his eyes. Her cold hand feels kind of nice with the warmth of the fire. “You already killed her.”   
  
Yeah.   
  
He did.   
  
“Tell my brain that.”   
  
“Oh, you have one?” He can barely help the grin that cracks on his face.   
  
He thinks, if they were alone, if he was just her disciple from the start, if She had never met him, never touched him, that he'd roll on his side, shoulder wound be fucked, and whine until she took pity on him and held him all night long.   
  
But he doesn't, obviously.   
  
He can imagine what she'd be like as a proper intoner, absolute iron fist. People would be horrified but- they'd respect her, at least. He really doesn't know if anyone respects any of them other then One at this point, and even then.   
  
She wouldn't live by the fucking ocean, at the very least.  
  
“Yeah.” He says eventually.   
  
She could make fun of him for longer, but she settles on settling next to him, getting more comfortable. Letting half of his weight fall on her.   
  
He closes his eyes on his own and with her hand over them even the light of the fire doesn't seem to reach him. Just Zero at his side.   
  
Just Z.   
  
When she kicks him awake in the morning, he's so startled he almost rolls into the dull embers of the dying fire.   
  
“Sure you have a brain?” She asks and nudges his shoulder with her foot ever so slightly.   
  
“Fuck you.”  
  
“You wish. We're moving in ten, and I'm not fucking waiting for you assholes this time. Got it?” A scattered echo from the other three before she turns her head down and glares at him specifically.   
  
“Obviously.”   
  
The sun is already halfway up the mountain.   
  
He fails to keep a grin off of his face.

 

**Author's Note:**

> comments are always encouraged and very very very appreciated
> 
> find[ me here](http://iamalivenow.tumblr.com/) [ or here](https://twitter.com/licotain)


End file.
